| Benefits of CEA Accreditation |
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Where do I begin? The Language and We worked very hard on the first self-study and truly felt our second self-study for re-accreditation would be a “piece of cake.” Once again, we assembled a great team to serve as the steering committee, and we soon realized that we needed to do this with fresh writing and a completely new look at what works and what doesn’t in our program. This all started when we brought Mary Reeves in to do a re-accreditation workshop for our entire staff. Her advice was: “Start over. Don’t try to re-work your first self-study.” We listened to her. We met and we wrote and we met and we wrote . . . and we grew very close to the standards and to each other. Having all of our teachers, administrators, and support staff involved in the CEA workshop to kick off our second self-study made all the difference! We felt we had complete buy-in to the process from the outset. It didn’t hurt that we had all seen what happened after we achieved initial accreditation through CEA. We know that accreditation was not the only reason this happened and that there were many factors, including improved policies on the issuance of visas around the world, but our enrollment slowly increased and then began to soar. We know now that students and their sponsors are interested in accreditation. Governments issuing scholarships are looking for accredited schools. Since the fall term of 2004, when the LCC experienced a low enrollment of 89 students, our applications have skyrocketed, and for the last three years, we have sustained enrollments of more than 300 students each term. There has been a steady upward trend since 2005. We were accredited in the spring of 2005. We all knew this when we started the second self-study. While in the process of working for initial accreditation, we had to convince ourselves and more than a few skeptical members of our team that all the hard work would be recognized and would be, indeed, worthwhile . . . but the second time around, everyone was on board from the beginning. I can also affirm that the self-study for re-accreditation was no less work than the first, but we all had our eyes on the prize. We knew why we were doing the work. Improved numbers were an unexpected outcome of accreditation and probably not the most important outcome. Accepting the challenge of the self-study and working to make sure we met the standards helped us to become a better program and a better workplace. The real value can be found in the new mindset of teachers and administrators who work together to make sure we are pursuing best practices in our field and that we are creating the best possible program for our students. In preparing to write this article, I found some of the email I wrote to the staff before the site visit: We are ready to do this. We all need to be present at the Initial Briefing with the CEA Site Review Team on Thursday, November 12, at 12:30. I am eager to have the team meet every single LCC employee. They have read our report, and now they will discover the real reason the LCC is such an amazing program. You, the quiet and intelligent professionals who care about your students and who are passionate about your work, have brought us here. We have all built this program together. I have no doubt that the reviewers will feel the love. When the site review team arrived, we were nervous and excited and eager to show off. At the initial briefing with the team, the entire LCC staff was present . . . everybody . . . dressed up . . . ready. I will never forget their faces, and I will never forget the energy in the room. We knew we had done something big, something important. We actually enjoyed the site visit. The team was exceptional. They put us all at ease during that first meeting and then went about their work with professionalism . . . and with warmth. They were thorough and careful, and they “left no stone unturned.” They don’t know this, but we were high-fiving after interviews and observations and everyone was thanking everyone for being at their best. I found another note that I wrote after the team left: I thank all of you, every teacher, administrator, program assistant, and support person in the LCC, for being willing to put yourselves on the line along with the rest of us. I appreciate your very hard work, but most of all, I appreciate the spirit in which you did that hard work. We will learn the commission's accreditation decision in late April, 2010. Whatever that decision may be, the LCC is a better program for having gone through this extraordinary process. I thank you all for your full participation and for your commitment to the LCC and its students. At the April 2010 meeting of the Commission, we were granted 10-year re-accreditation. I walked right into a teachers’ meeting to make the big announcement as soon as I received the news, and the celebration began. We had already decided that, whatever the ultimate decision turned out to be, we would have no regrets. We know that we are all better professionals and that our students are the ultimate beneficiaries of the new insights, the revised policies, the ongoing planning. We have had a most excellent journey. I do need to tell you one more thing: For years, the LCC has proposed a TOEFL waiver for graduate students in our program. We have had that understanding for undergraduate students since 1997. In February, we learned that the Graduate and Professional Studies Committee of the university has approved our request for the TOEFL waiver for both graduate and undergraduate admission to the University of Houston for LCC students who successfully complete level six, and this will become effective in September 2010. We know that accreditation was a factor in the decision of the committee. Once again, our students are the beneficiaries. Have we gained a new level of respect on this campus and within our college and our department? Yes. Have our students and teachers benefitted from the work we have done? Yes. Would we do it all again? Unequivocally, yes. Joy Tesh Director Language and |
